Mourning Rings

The Old Radical: Representations of Jeremy Bentham—

Catalogue entry No. 36, pp.55-6.

According to his final will, dated
30 May 1832, Bentham left to friends twenty-six
mourning rings made by
John Field in 1822. Until recently
only three rings were identified: one bought by the College in 1986, now
displayed on the table beside Bentham’s Auto-Icon in the South Cloisters at
UCL, and another included in a portrait of José del Valle, a Guatemalan lawyer,
economist, and politician (Catalogue, No. 37). In 1997 the ring left to
William Tait, the Edinburgh bookseller and publisher, who published the edition
of the works of Jeremy Bentham, under the general editorship of John Bowring,
was bought at Phillips, the auctioneers, and was included in the exhibition, The
Old Radical: Representations of Jeremy Bentham in 1998 (Catalogue,
No. 36).

Three more rings have since been located. In 1999 University College
received as part of the Denis Roy Bentham
Collection, the mourning ring presented to Jean Sylvain van de Weyer
(1802–74), a leading Belgian politician, and the Belgian Ambassador to London at the time of
Bentham’s death. In the same year another ring was brought to our attention by
a collector in Middlesex. This ring was given to William Stockwell, a servant
boy, who worked for Bentham, during the last years of his life.

In May 2007, the Bentham Project
was presented with the mourning ring belonging to John Stuart Mill (above),
and this artefact which connects the two
most famous exponents of Utilitarian philosophy is perhaps the most treasured
of all the rings. The ring was bought in New
Orleans in May 2004 by Michael Phillips, who graduated
from UCL in Law in 1970, and was made a fellow of UCL in 2002. The Bentham
Project is most grateful to him for donating the ring to UCL.

Apart from the ring bought by UCL
in 1986, which is not inscribed, and
the ring given to José del Valle, which has not been seen, we have been able
to
identify the recipient of each ring by an inscription on the outside of the
ring. Despite their seeming uniformity, each of the rings reveal slight
differences: the ring given to William Tait contains a circular twist of
Bentham’s hair behind the portrait silhouette; the rings given to Jean Sylvain
van de Weyer and John Stuart Mill contain a neat plait of Bentham’s hair; and
the ring given to the servant, William Stockwell, contains a circular twist of
Bentham’s hair, but no portrait. The subtle variations in the quality of the
rings probably equates with the perceived social standing of the recipients at
the time. Additionally the rings given to William Stockwell and William Tait
show signs of wear and tear. The ring belonging to Tait, a working printer, is
by far the largest (right), while the rings given to Jean Sylvain van de Weyer
(left) and John Stuart Mill are considerably smaller.